Yonfan

Yonfan wrote, directed and produced all 14 of his motion pictures. He was born in Wuhan, China and brought up in Taiwan now lives in Hong Kong. Throughout his career, he gave Maggie Cheung her first on-screen romantic role and made Chow Yun-fat a box-office star, Story of Rose (1985), discovered Daniel Wu, Bishonen (1998) and revived the career of the legendary Rie Miyazawa, Peony Pavilion (2002). He has pioneered LGBT theme in the Hong Kong mainstream cinema. He has worked with practically every Chinese screen siren of his era. He also restored his complete film library and is now restoring his photographic work including images of China and Tibet in the late 70's and 80's. In 1997, French President Jacques Chirac presented the title of Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur to Yonfan to honor his contribution to film art. As a connoisseur of Chinese paintings, Yonfan has made donations to Musée Guimet Paris and the Arthur M Sackler Gallery. He is also a renowned writer in Chinese and has had books of his essays and short stories, memoirs of world cinema, his photography and his art collections published in Chinese, English and Japanese. No.7 Cherry Lane is Yonfan's debut animation and his first new film in a decade (Prince of Tears in 66th Venice Competition, 2009) and awarded "Best Screenplay" in 76th Venice Competition, 2019.